Paris Air Show sees flood of plane orders despite rain-swept first day

A flood of orders and the prospect of a rocket-engined flight from London to
Tokyo in under two and a half hours added to the confidence of the booming
aviation industry, as the week-long Paris air show got off to a rain-swept
start on Monday.

The order flow was accompanied by a declaration from Boeing that the era of market dominance for large commercial aircraft shared with Airbus was over.

Chinese, Brazilian, Russian and Canadian manufacturers queuing up to break into the 100 seat plus sector of the market, US plane-maker Boeing said.

Rolls-Royce was quick off the mark with a $2.2bn (£1.36bn) contract to provide Tam Airlines of Brazil with 27 Trent XWB engines for a fleet of A350 aircraft ordered from Airbus, the civil aviation wing of EADS, the European aerospace and defence manufacturer.

General Electric, the world's biggest aero-engine manufacturer, attempted to steal a march on its British rival with a confident forecast that it would pick up more than $10bn worth of orders during the week.

Airbus jumped in ahead of Boeing with the first aircraft order, selling 60 A320neo jets, a re-engined version of its highly successful narrow body plane, to GE Capital Aviation Services, the commercial aircraft leasing and financing arm of GE for $5.1bn.

Related Articles

They will be powered by Leap-X engines supplied by GE's CFM International joint venture with Safran of France.

The two dominant planemakers have already had one spat over the new style A320.

Boeing says the plane does not represent a threat to its 737 family but Airbus is making confident noises about taking the order book for the fuel efficient A320 through the 500 mark by the end of the show.

Boeing has arrived at Le Bourget in force, with full order books and the 747-8 passenger jet and wide-bodied 787 freighter making their international debut.

Last year Airbus and Boeing built more than 970 aircraft and this year's total is expected to top 1,000 for the first time.

Jim Albaugh, the head of Boeing's civil jet division, caused a stir with his warning about competition getting tougher.

"The days of the duopoly with Airbus are over," he declared.

The advent of hypersonic travel was held out by Airbus as it shrugged off the disappointment of seeing its flagship A380 superjumbo and A400M military transport giant grounded by an accident and mechanical headaches yesterday.

Airbus is working on a Concorde-style design for a hypersonic plane capable of seating between 50 and 100 business travellers and flying at more than four times the speed of sound - more than 3,000mph - at 105,000 feet.

However passengers will have a long wait. An unmanned prototype is unlikely to be flying before 2020 and the first commercial flight could be another 30 years off but the hydrogen and oxygen fuelled plane will not leave a carbon footprint because Airbus says it will produce zero emissions.

The plane, named the Zehst - zero emission high speed transport - is being developed with Japanese partners. Airbus says all the necessary technology is in place but the development costs are said to be stratospheric.

The first day surge of orders reflected the traditional air show pattern where manufacturers line up important contracts in advance to demonstrate confidence and optimism.

Rolls-Royce has also signed a contract with the Saudi Arabian air force to repair and overhaul its T56 engined C-130 transport aircraft and renewed a ten year contract with Macclesfield based Bodycote to make its aero-engine materials stronger and safer.

Qatar Airways hopes to join the queue for the revamped A320 before the end of the show while Bombardier, the Canadian aerospace group, ended an order drought with contracts and options worth $1bn for its C Series 100 seater jet.